Article published in:
Language and Dialogue
Vol. 4:2 (2014) ► pp. 261–283

Humor understanding and knowledge

| Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, University of Macerata, Italy
According to the cognitive approach to humour, understanding of humorous texts implies a moment of surprise, even confusion of thought, produced by the recognition of an incongruity, defined as an incoherent piece of the text. The problem solving activity involved in humor understanding aims at resolving the incongruity. Our goal is to contribute to better define the surprise experience by describing its epistemic and evidential aspects. The tested hypothesis, verified through “thinking aloud method” and the descriptive tools provided by the Known-Unknown-Believed theory, is that this phase of humor understanding is linked to the worlds of knowledge of unknown and believed, referred to by means of consistent linguistic markers. The hypothesis resulted to be confirmed both for jokes and cartoons.
Keywords: surprise, incongruity, certainty, uncertainty, resolution, knowing/unknowing/believing stance, evidentiality, epistemicity
Published online: 15 September 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.4.2.05can
References
Apter, Michael J
1982 The Experience of Motivation: The Theory of Psychological Reversal. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore
1994 Linguistic Theories of Humor. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2001 Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1997 “The Semantic Foundations of Cognitive Theories of Humor.” Humor . International Journal of Humor Research 10(4): 395–420. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore, and Victor Raskin
1991 “Script Theory Revis (it)ed: Joke Similarity and Joke Representation Model.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 4 (3/4): 293–347. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Berlyne, Daniel E
1969 “Laughter, Humor and Play.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 31, ed. by Gardner Lindzey, and Elliot Aronson, 795–852. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
1972 “Humor and Its Kin.” In The Psychology of Humor, ed. by Jeffrey H. Goldstein, and Paul E. McGhee, 43–60. New York: Academic Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bongelli, Ramona, and Andrzej Zuczkowski
2008 Indicatori Linguistici Percettivi e Cognitivi. Roma: Aracne.Google Scholar
Bongelli, Ramona, Carla Canestrari, Ilaria Riccioni, Andrzej Zuczkowski, Cinzia Buldorini, Ricardo Pietrobon, Alberto Lavelli, and Bernardo Magnini
2012 “A Corpus of Scientific Biomedical Texts Spanning over 168 Years Annotated for Uncertainty.” Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on LREC’12 , ed. by Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Thierry Declerck, Mehmet Uğur Doğan, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Jan Odijk, and Stelios Piperidis. European Language Resources Association.
Canestrari, Carla, and Ivana Bianchi
2009 “The Perception of Humor: From Script opposition to the Phenomenological Rules of Contrariety.” In The Perception and Cognition of Contraries, ed. by Ugo Savardi, 225–246. Milan: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
2012 “Perception of Contrariety in Jokes.” Discourse Processes 49 (7): 539–564. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 “From Perception of Contraries to Humorous Incongruities.” In Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory, ed. by Marta Dynel, 3–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Claparède, Édouard
1933 La gènese de l’hypothèse, Vol. 241. Genevre: Librairie Kundig.Google Scholar
Deckers, Lambert
1993 “On the Validity of Weight-Judging Paradigm for the Study of Humor.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 6(1): 43–56. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Duncker, Karl
1935 Zur Psychologie des Produktiven Denken. Berlin: Springer. [On Problem Solving Activity]. 1972. Westport: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul
1992 “An Argument for Basic Emotions.” In Basic Emotions, ed. by Nancy L. Stein, and Keith Oatley, 169–200. Hove, UK: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fagen, Robert
1981 Animal Play Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Forabosco, Giovannantonio
1992 “Cognitive Aspects of the Humor Process: The Concept of Incongruity.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 5 (1/2): 45–68. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 “Is the Concept of Incongruity Still a Useful Construct for The Advancement in Humor Research?” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4 (1): 45–62. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hay, Jennifer
2001 “The Pragmatics of Humor Support.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 141: 55–82. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hempelmann, Christian F., and Salvatore Attardo
2011 “Resolutions and Their Incongruities: Further Thoughts on Logical Mechanisms.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 24 (2): 125–149. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hempelmann, Christian F., and Willibald Ruch
2005 “3 WD meets GTVH: Breaking the Ground for Interdisciplinary Humor Research.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 18(4): 353–387. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hillson, Tim. R., and Rod A. Martin
1994 “What’s so Funny About That?: The Domains-Interaction Approach as a Model of Incongruity and Resolution in Humor.” Motivation and Emotion 18 (1): 1–29. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hockett, Charles
1977 “Jokes.” In The View From Language: Selected Essays, 1948-1974, ed. by Charles F. Hockett, 257–289. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
1984 “Transcription Notation.” In Structures of Social Interaction, ed. by Maxwell J. Atkinson, and John Heritage, IX-XVI. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keith-Spiegel, Patricia
1972 “Early Conception of Humor: Varieties and Issues.” In The Psychology of Humour, ed. by Jeffrey H. Goldstein, and Paul E. McGhee, 3–39. New York: Academic Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kamio, Akio
1994 “The Theory of Territory of Information. The Case of Japanese.” Journal of Pragmatics 21(1): 67–100. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1997 Territory of Information. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Koestler, Arthur
1964 The Act of Creation. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Izard, Carroll E
1977 Human Emotions. New York: Plenum. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Macedo, Luís, and Amílcar Cardoso
2001 “Modelling Forms of Surprise in Artificial Agents.” In Proceedings of the twenty-third Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. by Johanna D. Moore, and Keith Stenning, 588–593. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Maier, Norman R.F
1932 “A Gestalt Theory of Humour.” British Journal of Psychology 231: 69–74.Google Scholar
Martin, Rod A
2007 The Psychology of Humor. An Integrative Approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.Google Scholar
McGhee, Paul E
(ed.) 1979 Humor: Its Origin and Development. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
McGhee Paul E., Willibald Ruch, and Franz-Josef Franz-Josef Hehl
1990 “A Personality-Based Model of Humor Development During Adulthood.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 3(2): 119–146.Google Scholar
Metz-Göckel, Hellmuth
2008 “Closure as a Joke-Principle.” Gestalt Theory 30 (3): 331–336.Google Scholar
Meyer, Wulf-Uwe, Rainer Reisenzein, and Achin Schützwohl
1997 “Towards a Process Analysis of Emotions: The Case of Surprise.” Motivation and Emotion 21 (3): 251–274. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Morreal John
(ed.) 1987 The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Nerhardt, Göran
1970 “Humor and Inclination to Laugh: Emotional Reactions to Stimuli of Different Divergence from a Range of Expectancy.” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 111: 185–195. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1976 “Incongruity and Funniness: Towards a New Descriptive Model.” In Humour and Laughter: Theory, Research and Applications, ed. by Anthony J. Chapman, and Hugh C. Foot, 55–62. London: Wiley.Google Scholar
Norrick, Neal R
1993 Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ortony, Andrew, and Derek Partridge
1987 “Surprisingness and Expectation Failure: What’s the Difference?” In Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 106–108. Los Altos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.Google Scholar
Pepiciello, William J
1989 “Ambiguity in Verbal and Visual Riddles.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 2 (3): 207–215.Google Scholar
Philip, Gill, Ramona Bongelli, Carla Canestrari, Ilaria Riccioni, and Andrzej Zuczkowski
2013 “Negotiating Narrative: Dialogic Dynamics of Known, Unknown and Believed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Language & Dialogue 3 (1): 6–32. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ritchie, Graeme
1999 “Developing Incongruity-Resolution Theory.” In Proceedings of AISB 991, 78–85.Google Scholar
2004 The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes. London: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2006 Reinterpretation and Viewpoints. Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 19 (3): 251–270. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rothbart, Mary K., and Diana Pien
1977 “Elephants and Marshmallows: A Theoretical Synthesis of Incongruity-Resolution and Arousal Theories of Humour.” In It’s a Funny Thing, Humour, ed. by Antony J. Chapman, and Hugh C. Foot, 37–40. New York: Pergamon. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ruch, Willibald
1992 “Assessment of Appreciation of Humor: Studies with the 3 WD Humor Test.” In Advances in Personality Assessment (Vol. 91), ed. by Charles Donald Spielberger, and James Neal Butcher, 27–72. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Russell, Roy E
1996 “Understanding Laughter in Terms of Basic Perceptual and Response Patterns.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 9 (1): 39–55. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Samson, Andrea C., and Christian F. Hempelmann
2011 “Humor with Backgrounded Incongruity: Does More Required Suspension of Disbelief Affect Humor Perception?” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 24 (2): 167–185. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Samson, Andrea C., Stefan Zysset, and Oswald Huber
2008 “Cognitive Humor Processing: Different Logical Mechanisms in Non-Verbal Cartoons – an fMRI Study.” Social Neuroscience 3 (2): 125–140. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schiller, Paul
1938 “A Configurational Theory of Jokes and Puzzles”. The Journal of General Psychology 181: 217–234. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sherzer, Joel
1985 “Puns and Jokes.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Teun A. Van Dijk, 213–221. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Shultz, Thomas R
1974 “Development of the Appreciation of Riddles.” Child Development 451: 100–105. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1976 “A Cognitive-Developmental Analysis of Humour.” In Humour and Laughter: Theory, Research, and Applications, ed. by Antony J. Chapman and Hugh C. Foot, 11–36. London: Wiley.Google Scholar
Shultz, Thomas R., and Frances Horibe
1974 “Development of the Appreciation of Verbal Jokes.” Developmental Psychology 101: 13–20. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shultz, Thomas R., and Robert Pilon
1973 “Development of the Ability to Detect Linguistic Ambiguity.” Child Development 441: 728–733. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Ken
1996 “Laughing at the Way We See: The Role of Visual Organization Principles in Cartoon Humor.” Humor International Journal of Humor Research 9 (1): 19–38. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Suls, Jerry M
1972 “A Two-Stage Model for the Appreciation of Jokes and Cartoons.” In The Psychology of Humour, ed. by Jeffrey H. Goldstein, and Paul E. McGhee, 81–100. New York: Academic Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1983 “Cognitive Processes in Humor Appreciation.” In Handbook of Humour Research, Vol.1: Basic Issues, ed. by Paul E. McGhee, and Jeffrey Goldstein, 39–57. New York: Springer Verlag. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Van Someren, Maarten W., Yvonne F. Barnard, and Jacobijn A.C. Sandberg
1994 The Think Aloud Method. A Practical Guide to Modeling Cognitive Processing. London: Accademic Press.Google Scholar
Veale, Tony
2008 “Figure-Ground Duality in Humour: A Multi-Modal Perspective.” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4 (1): 63–81. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Viana, Amadeu
2010 “Asymmetry in Script Opposition.” Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 23 (4): 505–526. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Watts, Richard J
1989 “Comic Strips and Theories of Communication.” Word & Image 5 (2): 173–180. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zuczkowski, Andrzej, Ramona Bongelli, and Ilaria Riccioni
2011 “Proposizione Costitutiva di Mondo e Indicatori Linguistici Percettivi e Comunicativi nella Lingua Italiana.” In Dimensionen der Analyse von Texten und Diskursen, ed. by Klaus Hölker, and Carla Marello, 41–61. Münster: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

Bianchi, Ivana, Erika Branchini, Carla Canestrari & Roberto Burro
2022. On pleasures of the mind related to humour and insight problem solving: an investigation of people’s awareness of what they like and why. Journal of Cognitive Psychology ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Canestrari, Carla, Gonzalo Del Moral Arroyo, Angelo Carrieri, Morena Muzi & Alessandra Fermani
2021. Parental attachment and cyberbullying victims: the mediation effect of gelotophobia. Current Psychology Crossref logo
Canestrari, Carla & Ivana Bianchi
2018. Perceptual opposites and the modulation of contrast in irony. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 16:1 ► pp. 48 ff. Crossref logo
Canestrari, Carla, Erika Branchini, Ivana Bianchi, Ugo Savardi & Roberto Burro
2018. Pleasures of the Mind: What Makes Jokes and Insight Problems Enjoyable. Frontiers in Psychology 8 Crossref logo
Canestrari, Carla & Amadeu Viana
2019. Dialogical strategies in replies to offensive humour. Language and Dialogue 9:2 ► pp. 217 ff. Crossref logo
Dynel, Marta
2018. Taking cognisance of cognitive linguistic research on humour. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 16:1 ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Malik, Aakriti
2021.  In The Palgrave Handbook of Humour Research, ► pp. 497 ff. Crossref logo
Mocarski, Richard & Sim Butler
2016. A Critical, Rhetorical Analysis of Man Therapy. Journal of Communication Inquiry 40:2 ► pp. 128 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 03 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.